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Gun Control

As Pat Paulson said so well, “A lot of people have been shooting off their mouths about gun control.”

Gun rights advocates claim unalienable right granted by the second amendment to the constitution:

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

It is clear that the right to bear arms shall not be infringed.

What is not clear is what arms are, or what constitutes infringement.

My Merriam-Webster dictionary lists “arm” coming from the

“Middle English armes (plural) meaning weapons, from the Anglo-French, from the Latin arma.” It defines the word to mean “a means (as a weapon) of offense or defense; especially: FIREARM.”

The same dictionary lists “infringe” coming from

“Medieval Latin infringere, from Latin, to break, crush, from in + frangere to break.”

These definitions follow

“transitive verb

1: to encroach upon in a way that violates law or the right of another (infringe a patent)

2 obsolete: DEFEAT, FRUSTRATE

intransitive verb: ENCROACH used with on or upon (infringe on our rights)”

So, while the meaning of arms is pretty clear, the meaning of infringe is a little muddier.

“Arms” means weapons. No restrictions: from knives, hatchets and swords to unmanned drones and atomic bombs. All are arms. (Hence common terms like “the arms race” in referring to the quest for atomic bomb “superiority.”)

“Infringe” might have meant “defeat” or “frustrate” at the time of the adoption of the Bill of Rights, or it may have been obsolete by that time. I can’t say, although the fashion of writing “s”s as if they were “f”s is certainly one I don’t miss.

It might also have meant exactly what the dictionary shows it means now:

“to encroach upon in a way that violates law or the right of another”

If so, we have serious interpretive problems:

If infringe means to somehow frustrate/prevent an action (owning or using arms) “in a way that violates law”, how can laws regulating gun ownership and/or use be infringement?

On the other hand, if we cannot regulate the ownership and use of weapons, what is to keep someone from owning and operating an unmanned drone, or an atomic bomb?

It seems that everyone should be able to agree that the second amendment does not prevent reasonable regulation of the right to “keep and bear arms.” The question becomes what is reasonable regulation, given the following?

The Founders recognized that those in power will seek to keep and consolidate power, and the ability of the people to protect themselves from unwarranted acts by the powerful is essential to maintaining their freedoms.

Each of us desires to be safe and secure in our homes and our daily lives. Unrestricted ownership and use of firearms is often a threat to that safety and security.

What is reasonable regulation? What is effective enough, without being excessive?